


Endives and Horseradish

by Seiya234



Category: Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 14:53:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13238076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seiya234/pseuds/Seiya234
Summary: Honestly. Iselle was grown. She should be past this.





	Endives and Horseradish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [servantofclio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/gifts).



Iselle watched her mother out the window, as Ista gracefully dismounted with barely any help.

Iselle never imagined that she would see her mother ride astride a horse again... no.

Not again.

Because there was no time in her memory that she remembered her mother riding a horse. 

What did Iselle remember?

Not ruddy cheeks flush with honest exertion or a sardonic biting laugh.

In the vast majority of Iselle's memories of her mother, Iselle did not even see Ista's face.

Ista face first on the floor, hair grown long past her waist spread over and around her like a blanket.

A voice, heard from around the corners or the next floor up, that crooned not lullabies but instead shrieked like a dying animal, a voice that cried until the throat was too raw to cry any more. 

Ista's nails, red and bloody from chewing them to the quick.

Memories of hands flitting like butterflies over Iselle, checking her for some unseen injury, even as Iselle had squirmed and tried to get away.

Unbidden, Iselle's hand clenched.

She was being unfair to her mother, she knew.

But no one ever thought that it was unfair for her as well. 


End file.
